It is raining,--a cold and steady downpour. I don't feel in the least like
writing a letter. This is only to tell you that I have got enough
anthracite coal to go to the end of February, and that the house is
warm and cosy, and I am duly thankful to face this third war-winter
free from fear of freezing. It cost thirty-two dollars a ton. How does
that sound to you?
I have planted my tulip bulbs, cleaned up the garden for winter and
settled down to life inside my walls, with my courage in both hands,
and the hope that next spring's offensive will not be a great
disappointment.
In the meantime I am sorry that Franz Josef did not live to see this
war of his out and take his punishment. I used to be so sorry for him
in the old days, when it seemed as if Fate showered disasters on the
heads of the Hapsburgs. I wasted my pity. The blows killed everyone
in the family but father. The way he stood it and never learned to be
kind or wise proved how little he needed pity.
All the signs say a cold winter. How I envy hibernating animals! I want
to live to see this thing out, but it would be nice to crawl into a hole,
like a bear, and sleep comfortably until the sun came out in the
spring, and the seeds began to sprout, and the army was thawed out,
and could move. In the silence on this hilltop, where nothing happens
but dishwashing and bedmaking and darning stockings, it is a long
way to springtime, even if it comes early.
I amused myself last week by defying the consign. I had not seen a
gendarme on the road for weeks. I had driven to Couilly once or
twice, though to do it I had to cross "the dead line." I had met the
garde champêtre there, and even talked to him, and he had said
nothing. So, hearing one day that my friend from Voulangis had a
permission to drive to the train at Esbly, and that she was returning
about nine in the morning, I determined to meet her on the road, and
at least see how she was looking and have a little chat. I felt a longing
to hear someone say: "Hulloa, you,"--just a few words in English.
So if you could have seen the road, just outside of Couilly, Thursday
morning, just after nine, you would have seen a Southern girl sitting in
a high cart facing east, and an elderly lady in a donkey cart facing
west, and the two of them watching the road ahead for the coming of
a bicycle pedalled by a gendarme with a gun on his back, as they
talked like magpies. It was all so funny that I was convulsed with
laughter. There we were, two innocent, harmless American women,
talking of our family affairs and our gardens, our fuel, our health, and
behaving like a pair of conspirators. We didn't dare to get out to
embrace each other, for fear--in case we saw a challenge coming--
that I could not scramble back and get away quickly enough, and we
only stayed a quarter of an hour. We might just as well have carried
our lunch and spent the day so far as I could see--only if anyone had
passed and had asked for our papers there would have been trouble.
However, we had our laugh, and decided that it was not worth while
to risk it again. But I could not help asking myself how, with all their
red tape, they ever caught any real suspect.
Do you remember that I told you some time ago about Louise's
brother, Joseph, in the heavy artillery, who had never seen a Boche?
Well, he is at home again for his eight days. He came to see me
yesterday. I said to him: "Well, Joseph, where did you come from this
time?"
"From the same place--the mountains in Alsace. We've not budged
for nearly two years."
"How long are you going to stay there?"
"To the end of the war, I imagine."
"But why?" I asked.
"What can we do, madame?" he replied. "There we are, on the top of
a mountain. We can't get down. The Germans can't get up. They are
across the valley on the top of a hill in the same fix."
"But what do you do up there?" I demanded.
"Well," he replied, "we watch the Germans, or at least the aeroplanes
do--we can't see them. They work on their defenses. They pull up
new guns and shift their emplacements. We let them work. Then our
big guns destroy their work."
"But what do they do, Joseph?"
"Well, they fire a few shots, and go to work again. But I'll tell you
something, madame, as sure as that we are both living, they would
not do a thing if we would only leave them in peace,--but we don't."
"Well, Joseph," I asked, "have you seen a Boche yet?"
"Oh, yes, madame, I've seen them. I see them, with a glass, working
in the fields, ploughing, and getting ready to plant them."
"And you don't do anything to prevent them?"
"Well, no. We can't very well. They always have a group of women
and children with every gang of workmen. They know, only too well,
that French guns will not fire at that kind of target. It is just the same
with their commissary trains--always women at the head, in the
middle, and in the rear."
Comment is unnecessary!